


Make It Work

by EvieSmallwood



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-02-12 21:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12969075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvieSmallwood/pseuds/EvieSmallwood
Summary: El has a nightmare.





	1. Chapter 1

He wakes up to screaming.

His reaction is immediate; a quick tensing as he jolts awake, hat nearly flying off of his face. His senses come to—eyes adjusting to the darkness and mind processing the sound that grates his eardrums.

She thrashes beside him, drenched in sweat, eyes still partially closed. Hopper reaches for her immediately, grasping her bony little wrists in his hands. “El! El, hey!”

She only writhes more, sobbing between screams. The others are all awake and around them now. A light flicks on. El’s eyes shoot open, and he can see how frightened she is, and how the haze of her nightmare still hasn’t left her vision. Her dreams are slipping into reality.

“ _El!_ Ellie, hey, come on,” he pulls her closer, so that she can’t scratch him exactly, and cradles her head with his other hand. “Hey, it’s me. It’s Hop, okay? You’re okay.”

Her screaming subsides with a sharp choke. He supposes it must be clarity settling over her as she sobs into his chest. He rocks her back and forth, like he always does when this happens. “I’m here, kid. Nothing’s got you.”

She curls into him, still crying. Still so fucking _small_. He knows deep down that she’ll always be small to him, no matter what she does. No matter how many god damned gates she closes, or monsters she kills.

The Wheeler kid— _Mike_ —hovers closest of all. He’s biting his nails, eyes locked on El’s form.

Hopper hears someone moving in the kitchen. It’s just Joyce, flitting from counter to counter. The smell of coffee permeates the room. His skin tingles.

El squirms a little against his grip. Hopper pulls away. “You good, kid?”

She nods, cheeks wet with tears and eyes puffy, skin still stained pink from the blood that had seeped from her nose and ears. “Good.”

He lets the tension bleed away. “You hungry?”

El nods more forcefully, and Hopper almost makes to move away, before Jonathan springs up from the couch and joins his mother in the kitchen. He pulls bread from the cupboards, then peanut butter, and lastly a jar of honey.

El rubs her ear, where a small red stain remains. Her nose wrinkles. “Gross.”

Hopper lets out a startled laugh. “Yeah. Maybe you should shower, huh?”

She’s still in her street clothes, hair slicked back but falling out of its form and curling at the ends. She hadn’t had a chance to shower, given that she’d fallen asleep almost as soon as she’d sat down on the living room couch. Hopper hadn’t had the heart to wake her.

El glances at the food being prepared, and then back at him. “It’ll still be here when you’re done,” he tells her. “Go get cleaned up, okay?”

“‘Kay,” she stands, and sways a little. Hopper reaches out to grab her, but El steadies herself and keeps walking. “Good,” she repeats firmly.

“Clothes,” says the Wheeler girl—Nancy, Jesus, he really needs to memorise their names—suddenly. “She needs clothes.”

“I can find you some,” Joyce says, swooping in with a gentle smile and a cup of coffee. She hands it to Hopper, who grasps it eagerly. It’s hot, warming his hands.

“Thanks, Joy,” he mumbles.

The nickname slips out, just as it had with El’s. He tacks it down to the heat of the moment and doesn’t bother to meet her eyes (if he had, he would have seen the pink tint her cheeks).

He must have called her ‘Joy’ a thousand times in high school, and yet somehow saying it now is like trying to pronounce some alien sound.

He wants until their footsteps retreat down the hall—hers and El’s—before sipping his coffee. _God, that’s fucking fantastic._

Hopper leans back against the wall, propping up one knee. He wonders absently where the hell he put his cigarettes. One would be good right about now.

He doesn’t have to wonder long, though, because suddenly a pack is being held out toward him. Hopper stares up at Wheeler—at Mike—and furrows his brow as he takes them. “Thanks, kid.”

Mike nods. Uninvited, he settles next to Hopper as a cigarette is lit. “Those things cause cancer, you know.”

Hop tries his best to keep his composure as his stomach drops. His palms feel slick with the sweat that erupts. He swallows, thinking of _his little girl_ , and jerks his head with something he hopes resembles a nod. “Yeah. I know.”

Mike studies him. It’s weird, being scanned by this thirteen year old kid, because those eyes don’t feel thirteen. They’re so much older, yet still tinged with the innocence of childhood. He knows too much. He’s seen too much. “Why do people do self-destructive things when the world is already fucked up enough?”

Whatever Hopper had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. Jesus Christ. “What?”

“Drinking, smoking, drugs... It’s just... if they knew, you know, how dangerous things can be—what’s really out there...”

“You don’t think they’d do it?”

Mike eyes the cigarette between Hopper’s fingers. “Not if they’re smart.”

 _Am I being lectured?_ Hopper opens his mouth, but there’s no anger or rebuttal on his lips. The kid is right, he supposes. He closes his mouth and clears his throat. “You got a problem, kid?”

“No,” Mike says, a little bluntly. “But you do.”

 _Oh, god, this one is gonna be a handful._ He turns back to say something—anything at all, because he can’t believe he has to defend himself about this (he, a nearly forty year old man), when Wheeler stands. He doesn’t say anything else, just walks over to his sister and plops down next to her. Nancy curls into his form.

Hopper takes a last drag from his cigarette and then puts out out in the nearest ashtray. _Guess that’s over, then._

Down the hall, the shower starts. Steve Harrington places a sandwich on the counter, which is eagerly grabbed by one of the kids.

_Maybe we can make this work._


	2. Collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, I know it’s been like... ages...   
> and I’m SORRY, but I had genuinely no idea what to write. 
> 
> Here this is, though.

The door clicks, and his whole body tenses. He doesn’t know if Nancy notices, but that doesn’t really matter right now, because there she is, and wow.

353 days of waiting. Of hoping. Sitting huddled up in the fort he’d made her pouring out his thoughts. Sometimes it had helped, and others—he’d just missed her. Constantly, he thought about all the things she hadn’t been able to do. He thought about how much it fucking _sucked_ that she’d...

It doesn’t matter, anymore.

El stands there, in a sweater of Joyce’s and pyjama pants that must belong to Will, hair still a little damp but so visibly _curly_. Mike swallows.

 _Pretty_.

El’s eyes are on his, gazes locked like magnets. And then she’s coming over and sitting beside him, curling up against him like it’s automatic. Not that he really minds, but he can’t do much to reciprocate because Nancy is hanging off him (fast asleep, he guesses) and one of his hands is holding hers. So instead of doing something weird, Mike offers El an open palm, which she takes eagerly and laces their fingers together.

“Um,” he can feel her hair, tickling his chin. “Hi.”

El smiles up at him. “Hi.”

Just like that, he melts. He doesn’t care that the guys are watching, or at least paying half attention. He doesn’t care that he’ll probably get teased later. He leans down and kisses her forehead, and then lets his cheek rest against her curls.

It’s too early in the morning for food, but Hopper comes up anyway. Mike doesn’t bother to pull away from El, because even though he sees how much the guy cares about her (he’s pretty much accepted that, by now; this whole weird dynamic), he’s not her _dad_.

“Hey, kid,” he reaches over and knocks her jawline with his knuckles. It makes her smile, fondly, like he’s done it a thousand times. “Peanut butter, how you like it.”

He sets down the plate and glances from El to Mike to Nancy, raises an eyebrow, and then goes back to the kitchen to help Mrs. Byers.

El detangles herself and hands Mike half of her sandwich. He manages to get some of Nancy’s weight off of himself and takes—toasted, with the crusts cut off. How she likes it.

He can’t even taste it. He hardly has an appetite, but he eats it anyway, because she’s smiling and clearly pleased.

It leaves the roof of his mouth feeling a little thick, but that fades after a minute or so. He realises he’s staring.

(Curly hair. God, he’d never thought it would be curly. He’d never even really thought about it at all. And her voice, he’d forgotten the way it had sounded—had he ever really known? But he’d heard so much come out of her mouth tonight, and he feels like he’s missed so much but it doesn’t really matter because she’s _here now._ )

“Oh, um—”

The floorboards creak. They both freeze—everyone does. Nancy springs away from Mike, all of the sudden alert. She can’t trust the small noises anymore. His voice, she can sleep through; she knows that. It’s the sneaking, the creeping, the bad.

But it isn’t bad; it’s Will, standing in the hallway and taking them all in.

Nancy’s hand comes down on Mike’s arm. Dustin and Lucas let loose a joyous cry of “Byers!” They don’t crowd him, though. They slap each other on the back and look over at him with equally ecstatic beams.

Jonathan and Joyce are at his side in an instant, Hopper hovering close behind. Mrs. Byers puts a hand on the base of Will’s neck. “How are you feeling, sweetie? You hungry?”

Will doesn’t even glance up. His gaze is locked on one person: El.

That’s when Mike notices that they’re both trembling. There are tears in her eyes—in his, too. Then El stands, and Will stumbles forward, and they crash into each other’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs. Mike can’t see him, but the heartbreak and the sorrow are so plain they practically vibrate through him.

“It’s okay,” El replies, firm but crying, too. “You’re okay, Will.”

“It’s _my fault._ ”

_Oh, shit._

Suddenly all Mike can see is the mangled and bloody form of Bob, arms splayed and eyes unseeing, _dead, dead, dead._

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over that. But it hadn’t been Will’s fault. That hadn’t _been Will_.

“No,” El says, rightly so. “You are _not bad,_ Will.”

Will shakes his head, clearly not believing any of it, and so El pulls him closer. Mike takes in the sight, absorbing this collision. Two poles, always separate, drawing his attention. Crashing together for the first time. What will they wreck? What lays in their wake?

_Science is neat, but I’m afraid it’s not very forgiving._

He bites his lip, but the fear slowly ebbs away when he sees Hopper and Mrs. Byers not far behind El and Will; his hand on her shoulder and her’s reaching up to touch it—it’s only a split second, but Mike catches the movement before they both pull away.

_This might work._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
